Arborist

Usage

Arborist::Migration is meant to run as a drop-in replacement for ActiveRecord::Migration. The easiest way to do that is modify your migrations to inherit from Arborist::Migration

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  data do
    # forward
  end
  # ...
end

By default data takes a forward-only approach and assumes by rolling back the schema would automatically revert the data migration. However, you can declare both up and down migrations with similar corresponding method options:

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  data :up do # => default
    # forward
  end

  data :down do
    # rollback
  end
  # ...
end

Optionally, pass a migration message:

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  data say: 'Updating admin flag' do
    # ...
  end
  # ...
end

Helpers

Although all ActiveRecord::Migration methods are supported (e.g., up, down , change), there are a set of helpers to define one action against another.

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  data do # :up
    # data only adjustments
  end

  schema do # :change
    add_column :users, :admin, :boolean
  end
end

For more complex data migrations you can provide a class. The only expectation is that the class being referenced includes a public call method. And, like other previous implementations, you can provide options such as say, up and down (to name a few).

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  class UpdateAdminFlag
    def call
      # custom migration ...
    end
  end

  data use: UpdateAdminFlag

  schema do
    add_column :users, :admin, :boolean, default: false
  end
end

Interchangeable Models

A common 'best-practice' is to use raw SQL instead of ActiveRecord backed classes, which is a totally practical option (see explanation below), but you lose the power of ActiveRecord, what if we could use ActiveRecord to support those changes?

Interchangeable models can be powerful tool when tracking object references.

Instead of using the model directly, set the target model and use model in the data migration:

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  model :User

  data do
    model.find_each do |user|
      user.admin = true
      user.save!
    end
  end
  # ...
end

Further, if you need to reference multiple models, you can do so by setting a method reference for each:

class AddAdminToUser < Arborist::Migration
  model :User,    as: :user
  model :Company, as: :company

  data do
    # user.all...
    # company.all...
  end
  # ...
end

Arborist runs a built in linter (Arborist::Migration.lint!) prior to migrating to confirm that all models and attribute dependencies being referenced are available. If any failure exists, the migration will fail prior to running all the migrations.

Methodology

Data migration in a Rails application can be a serious pain. Whether you take the strategy of including the data migration in the schema migrations...

class AddAdminToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    # Schema migration
    add_column :users, :admin, :boolean, default: false

    # Data migration
    User.all.each do |user|
      user.admin = true
      user.save!
    end
  end
end

Which at the time of generating the migration, works without issue; however, down the line, we rename the User model and neglect to update this migration.

In the future, when we run the entire set of migration (vs. rake db:schema:load) and the User model is missing, the migrations explode - this sucks.

Common Solutions

Temporary Models

class AddAdminToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
  # Temporary class
  class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  end
  # ...
end

And although this is a solution, this course of action results in duplicating the interface. Additional issues can present themselves, because the User model is under the AddAdminToUser namespace (AddAdminToUser::User), which will present issues when setting a polymorphic association or following an Single Table Inheritance (STI) model.

Raw SQL

A Rails independent strategy, you can use straight SQL. Then ActiveRecord models are not needed, and the presence (or lack) of the model is irrelevant.

class AddAdminToUser < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change
    # Schema migration
    add_column :users, :admin, :boolean, default: false

    # Data migration in raw SQL
    execute <<-SQL
      UPDATE `users` SET `users`.`admin` = true
    SQL
  end
end

As pointed out by many, this doesn't have many downsides, other than database syntax differences.

Rake tasks

If entirely opposed to including data migrations in the ActiveRecord migrations themselves (all examples above), then it's common to create a one off rake tasks, which would be run directly on the instance.

$ rake data:add_admin_flag_to_current_users

But it requires the command is run on all application instances and following the appropriate migration (i.e. AddAdminToUser); which could be done via the deployment hooks. However, you would be breaking the isolation of your migrations (within db/migrate) and polluting lib/tasks/ with one-off rake tasks; requiring cleanup.

Other issues: testing a rake task can be challenging; and, in essence we're exposing a production available routine that could cause serious issues, such as adding the admin flag to all users.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could:

Run data migrations side by side with the corresponding schema migration(s);
Test the data migration routine;
Optionally disable data migrations on an environment, such as production?

Sure, it would.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'arborist-rails'

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request

acuppy/arborist